Any pointers on how to report them?
As requested, I’m posting the full text of the email into this post body. I hope it’s screen reader friendly:
u/USERNAME,
tl;dr – you’re invited to a special program that lets redditors purchase stock at the same price as institutional investors when we IPO. Details about eligibility and next steps follow. This (long, dense) email has all the info we can provide due to legal restrictions.
As you may have heard, Reddit has taken steps toward becoming a publicly traded company with the initial public filing of our registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on February 22, 2024. Yes, it’s happening.
And because you have helped make Reddit what it is today, you now have the opportunity to become Reddit owners at the same price as institutional investors.
We’re offering a Directed Share Program (“DSP”) that invites eligible users and moderators who have contributed to Reddit to participate in our initial public offering (“IPO”). (Including you!) Program Requirements While being selected to pre-register is the first step, there are certain legal and regulatory requirements to participate in the DSP that are outside of Reddit’s control. Bear with us here…
To be eligible for the DSP, you must: • Be a current U.S. resident; o You will be asked to provide the DSP Administrator a valid social security or permanent resident number, along with other personal information. Reddit will not have access to this data. o Please note that U.S. residents using a VPN may face application limitations if the VPN locates them in certain non-U.S. jurisdictions. • Be at least 18 years old; • Provide your full legal name and an email address; • Not be a current or former Reddit employee (FTE). When the DSP launches (a few weeks after pre-registration ends), individuals who have been confirmed for the program will be contacted by our external DSP Administrator. You will then be asked to provide additional information securely to the DSP Administrator to confirm your eligibility. How to pre-register The number of people who can participate in the DSP is limited; we will offer this opportunity to as many redditors as we are able to accommodate. If capacity is reached before the deadline, you will be added to the waitlist. Based on demand, we may also limit the number of shares available.
If you are interested in being part of Reddit’s DSP, please go to https://reddit.com/dsp on desktop to complete the pre-registration form. If you are one of the confirmed participants, we will follow up with an email with more details in the coming weeks. You can also refer to the Frequently Asked Questions for more information. Due to regulatory restrictions (yeah… we know…) we are not able to respond to further inquiries or questions.
Pre-registering does not guarantee that you will be invited or able to participate in the DSP; it also does not obligate you to purchase shares.
As with any investment opportunity, you should make an individual decision based on your own personal circumstances and risk tolerance. Therefore, we urge you to review the preliminary prospectus, when available, before deciding whether to invest in Reddit.
The deadline for pre-registering for the DSP is March 5, 2024. If capacity is reached before the deadline, you will be added to the waitlist. What happens next? While there won’t be a confirmation email immediately after you pre-register, everyone who pre-registers will receive an email in the coming weeks from “[email protected]”, telling them whether they can proceed with the next steps for the DSP.
This is an automated message (beep, boop, beep) and does not receive replies. Please refer to the FAQ for more information. Per our lawyercats, we are not able to respond to further inquiries or questions. Prospectus and Important Disclosures The offering will be made only by means of a prospectus. When available, a copy of the preliminary prospectus related to the offering may be obtained from: Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC, Prospectus Department, 180 Varick Street, New York, New York 10014, or email: [email protected]; Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Attention: Prospectus Department, 200 West Street, New York, New York 10282, telephone: 1-866-471-2526, facsimile: 212-902-9316, or email: [email protected]; J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Attention:c/o Broadridge Financial Solutions, 1155 Long Island Avenue, Edgewood, New York 11717, telephone: 1-866-803-9204, or email: [email protected]; and BofA Securities, Inc., NC1-022-02-25, 201 North Tryon Street, Charlotte, North Carolina 28255-0001, Attention: Prospectus Department, telephone: 1-800-294-1322, or email: [email protected].
A registration statement relating to these securities has been filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission but has not yet become effective. These securities may not be sold nor may offers to buy be accepted prior to the time the registration statement becomes effective. This notification shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy these securities, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.
No offer to buy the securities can be accepted and no part of the purchase price can be received until the registration statement has become effective, and any such offer may be withdrawn or revoked, without obligation or commitment of any kind, at any time prior to the notice of its acceptance given after the effective date. An indication of interest in response to this notification will involve no obligation or commitment of any kind.
You are receiving this email because a Reddit account, USERNAME, is registered to this email address. 548 Market St., #16093, San Francisco, CA 94104–5401
Sounds like you need to contact your nation’s data protection authority
I believe it also violates California Privacy Protection laws as well
CCPA unfortunately seems to apply only for CA residents.
Very unfortunate. Hopefully federal laws will catch up
Does the GDPR have teeth against this kind of violation? Could Reddit be hit hard with violation fees?
They sent one to my deleted account that was literally called GDPR_Violation lol
0 fucks given
I haven’t used my reddit account the API change, beyond maybe 3 or 4 comments. I got an invite. How the fuck was I one of their top 35k most active users? Seems like their site isnt nearly as active as they’re claiming
It’s based in Karma. Since I had over 200k I was invited in the first group even though I hadn’t logged in since the change.
I have 40k karma on an 12 year old account and was invited. Obviously not buying that sit tho
There are a couple other factors. Were you a mod? Did you ever participate in one of reddit’s community programs like the Helper Program or Mod Council?
The 3 criteria are MVP status, which is based on participation in certain programs, Karma, or Mod Actions.
Same. 13 year account with 42,000 karma. Have not been on since the API change. Never a mod, never part of anything special, just a regular user in every way.
Yeah I just got an invite as well and I haven’t logged in since the protest that brought the first wave of us here. So karma has to be a deciding factor, I had over 100k I think so that would be the only reason I got an invite.
100k is the threshold for the second round of invitations.
ah i thought it was based on activity (though Reddit wrongly likes to correlate the two)
People should express interest, and go through whatever steps just short of actually buying
Karma was a relevant factor. I guess if yoi had a good amount of karma it may have contributed to it.
I got the email, also… And like you, I’ve not used reddit since the api BS. I’ve not logged in, commented or anything since just before sync stopped working.
I too got an email and haven’t posted at all since the API change.
If I really was in the top 35k before that, then at least I know quitting Reddit made some kind of dent in their content.
Did you post a lot? Do you have email notifications turned on?
My old account has… a lot (six digits worth), of comment karma. But I think I posted a grand total of three times in the last ten years or so. I also have notifications turned off. So, no IPO notification for me.
They’re getting desperate to find bag holders.
I think it’s more than that.
The price for these shares is probably not cheap for the individual, but won’t raise a ton of money internally in the grand scheme of things. At least, that’s how it works for employee options and phantom stock. The disparity here is due it’s utility as a retention mechanism. The idea is that, if invested, you’re less likely to jump ship until after IPO. With options and phantom stock, they typically have a “vestment period”, so you have to wait before you can get your money back out.
In this case, Reddit knows it needs its moderators and power users, but can’t afford to employ those people. So we get this weird middle-ground where they entice people to stick around, but they’re still not employees. As a bonus to Reddit Inc., these “investors” will provide ballast for the IPO, because I’m betting this stuff has a vestment period that extends well past the IPO date. Seeing this all on a balance sheet will make other investors feel a lot better about buying or even holding shares when the IPO kicks off.
What I really don’t like about this is that they mention the “DSP” and define it, but are coy about what the actual investment instrument is. What kind of shares are these? What is the price per share?
I wouldn’t expect companies to hard delete in this day and age. I fully expect that they all soft delete, sadly.
I just found out my account that I deleted, was in fact not deleted.
They once sent me an email, about their new privacy conditions on my deleted account too. If you live in EU I’d recommend forwarding this message and the confirmation of your account being deletes to your local data authorities. It’s pretty easy to file a compliant
Reddit: “what are you fuckin’ gonna do about it,…?”
Give 'em that sweet 4% global revenue fine after their IPO goes through would be a blast.
Do it before so the price tanks
Didn’t they make a loss?
So 4% of negative global revenue is… a profit?
That mean they get paid?
Revenue is all the money they have earned, not the money that they can necessarily use or “withdrawal” and run away with. If you spend 1 million and earn 0,5 million you still have a revenue of 0,5 million (and a loss of 0,5 million)
So yes they can still get fined (obviously) but it’s extremely unlikely that they will be fined the maximum amount possible. Especially for something small like this. As far as I know the DPAs has never fined anywhere close to 4% of global annual revenue. They are probably saving the higher fines for really serious violations.
It probably gets way more complicated with tax and all that, but I ain’t no accountant so I dunno.
Edit: The highest fine ever (since May 2023) is for Meta at 1,3 Billion USD and that’s roughly 1 % of their global annual revenue (116,6 Billion USD) for 2022. That’s half of the maximum fine for a normal violation and one-quarter the maximum fine for a serious violation.
Yupes, not just Revenue but actually Global Revenue.
It’s not exactly hard for a large transnational company to create accounting losses or even move revenue around to appear in some other country (usually using elements of intellectual property, such as costs for licensing Trademarks or Copyrighted material, which is why large Tech companies love it), but ultimatelly, money coming in anywhere in the World is money coming in anywhere in the World, and you can’t really avoid declaring it short of outright accounting fraud (something which can result in prison time for the people involved and it’s pretty impossible to hide unless they’re cash or crypto payments).
As Revenue is pretty straightforwardly “money in” (no taxes, no depreciation, no expenses - such as paying “trademark licensing costs” to a daughter company in a tax haven, which is a way of moving profits around - considered) it’s pretty hard to manipulate and Globally means you can’t avoid it being counted by trickeries such as having a daughter company in a different country be the one that receives payments.
Wasnt it only for us residents? Gdpr is european
Reddit may not track that, which isn’t a defense against GDPR violations.
That would not surprise me
I got the email in the UK. I don’t think Reddit was looking at what countries users were from when sending it.
I got this email in the UK guessing they are just Feering it at every account with a verified email against it
I’m in Europe and have gotten this message too through Reddit.
Did you delete the account or ask for data deletion?
I did the whole “GDPR, delete my stuff dance”. They replied with “you have to delete your posts yourself”. I didn’t budge, gave them the required 30 day ultimatum, but they gave zero fucks.
Does the GDPR still apply to the UK after Brexit? I thought it was a EU law.
Upon leaving the EU any laws that were in use were ‘enshrined’ into UK law. In order for the UK to remove EU laws we’d need to actively remove them through an act of parliament. (At least that’s my vague understanding…) https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eu-legislation-and-uk-law
I’m happy to keep the EU laws, it’ll save time when we rejoin.🇪🇺🇬🇧
Yeah, EU directives need to be adopted into local country legislature (with some deadlines), whereas EU delegated acts (usually hierarchically under a directive) automatically apply to all EU members. Hehe, members.
When is that going to happen? I would be very happy to have you back in the club 😊
It would take years for the UK to rejoin. First there’d have to be public polling, referendum and a desire by the sitting government to start the process then it’ll be however long it takes for the EU to debate the application and then the UK needs all members to accept the application. Currently neither the two largest UK parties want to even re-open the brexit debates. So basically it’d be at least over a decade.
We could maybe be on a Norway-style deal sooner than that though… Some things like single market access or Erasmus membership don’t necessarily require the long process of EU accession
Maybe but that would also mean people from let’s say Poland can live and work in the UK right? I thought that was one of the bigger Brexit points.
Hmm tbh I don’t know which of the internationak frameworks requires freedom of movement. Norway have it bc theyre in Schenghen, we weren’t in that but we still had it because of the EU. Idk if Iceland have freedom of movement
That would require Freedom Of Movement, which from my experience living in the UK at the time of the Leave Referendum was the main thing driving the Leave vote, closely followed by the UK having to follow EU directives (i.e. the whole “sovereignty” malarkey).
Looking around (not the just UK), xenophobia has become even stronger since, not weaker and Norway-style is still mainly “following EU directives”, though with some opt-outs in things not to do with Trade or Freedom Of Movement.
Also this time around it would be Spain as an EU member whilst the UK tried to get in (the reverse of last time) so they would probably demand to get Gibraltar back as condition for their vote (which is required since a unanimous vote is required). More in general pretty much any EU member with a bone to pick with the UK would get their chance, which might also be interesting for the likes of Greece (better make sure there isn’t a leftwing government in Greece given how the UK literally intervened militarilly to make sure at the end of WWII that the Fascists ended up in power in Greece, a dictatorship that lasted until the 80s).
Ugh, it sucks to be taken revenge on for things that you literally weren’t even around for to be able to stop.
I think it’s only unfair for people who aren’t nationalists.
Those who think they’re important because they hail from an important country, on the other hand, deserve the bad along with the perceived good. Sadly in my experience Britain is thick with nationalism, heavilly promoted even by the slant of international news on TV (were Britain’s importance to the rest is always exagerated), much more than other countries I lived in.
IMHO, Brexit was powered by that excessive nationalism and even the Remain side displayed a heavilly nationalist streak (I remember the “we should stay and change the EU from the inside” argument, implying that 50 million Britons should lead the other 470 million in the EU) so it’s only fair if others reciprocate.
Personally I think most Britons deserve it, though definitelly not all.
would we really though? think about them driving around in their austin powers union jack painted minis, just whipping around random roundabouts saying “I say” and “buh herr hear haar”
The UK has its own version of GDPR. That’s actually how the EU works, it sets guidelines and the countries create their own laws within those guidelines.
I got a message in my email that’s linked to a banned account…
It cheeses my beans so goram much that they took a perfectly good web site and made it terrible so they could sell it to “the public”, notionally the same people who were using the site!!!
I can only conclude that this is some kind of scam and actually most of the thing is going to end up owned by deliberately nebulous “institutional investors” and not the community members who constitute and deserve ownership of the community. Or even the people at Reddit Inc. who did the work of making the thing.
DAE socialism?
I can only conclude that this is some kind of scam
That depends on your framing.
Is it a legitimate attempt to sell shares? Absolutely. Completely legal, disregarding OP’s claim of a GDPR violation. There might be wiggle-room to suggest this is some flavor of price manipulation, but I’m not a lawyer or SEC investigator. In order to IPO, there’s a compliance framework that makes this functionally identical to any other IPO on the market.
Are some people who buy this IPO going to be left holding the bag? In a round-about “we’re all playing the same game, but also not” way, yes. For an instant, people will be holding shares in Reddit at the IPO price, and speculation on value will drive that up on the back of the IPO itself. It might plummet later the same day, it may not. But what is going to really burn people is when the primary shareholders “cash out” and sell a huge chunk of that stock. That usually has the effect of signaling that the company isn’t worth what it was anymore. It’s a gamble where the house can destroy your bid before you can manage to pawn your chips off onto the next guy.
From a spectator standpoint, where this may get interesting is where Reddit IPO intersects with r/wallstreetbets.
Edit: dividends are also a thing, but I never hear about that outside of what mutual funds and 401ks are up to. As someone who has no idea how Reddit does or can actually make money, I’m going to guess that’s not going to be a benefit of being a long-term shareholder.
I had a high karma account that they permabanned. I imagine they probably want to send me an invite, but I never gave them my email.
